John Adcox

Over the course of a 20-year career in advertising, marketing, and new media John Adcox (he/him) has held a number of titles including Executive Producer, Vice President of Digital Media, Creative Director, Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services, and CEO. A few of his clients have included AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, Holiday Inn, Coca-Cola, UPS, SCANA, AutoTrader.com, Time Warner, Disney, Delta Air Lines, 3M, Ford, and many more.

In addition, he has hosted a radio show, acted professionally (although not since age 15), designed and written scripts for games, written a play for a professional theatre company, taught university astronomy, and written articles on topics including mythology, psychology, technology, religion, and marketing strategy.

John served for more than four years as the Lay Leader and Council Chair at Inman Park United Methodist Church. His many, many interests include books and literature, religion and philosophy, mythology, the Arthurian legends, travel, baseball, science fiction and fantasy, marketing communications, Celtic music and lore, new media, theatre, and politics, not to mention astronomy and cosmological physics.

John sits on advisory boards at the Blockchain Chamber of Commerce, Invest Atlanta (Creative Industries), and the Georgia State University Library.

John is now concentrating on storytelling—he is the author of Blackthorne Faire and other novels, and he has a screenplay in development. Meanwhile, he maintains a laser focus on Gramarye Media and its publishing, film and television content development, production, and distribution arms.

Alice Neuhauser

Alice P. Neuhauser (she/her) has a broad range of entertainment experience in financial management, establishment and oversight of corporate, legal and accounting procedures, and business development and strategic planning. From successfully developing a major commercial real estate project to assisting lenders in maximizing the value of distressed assets to managing the day-to-day operations of independent film companies, Alice has demonstrated entrepreneurial success in maximizing effort and investment by finding opportunities to utilize both existing studio structures and independent constructs.

Over the course of her career, Alice has managed project financing for motion pictures ranging in budget from $2 million to $100 million each, totaling over half a billion dollars.  Such financings included some of the largest independently financed pictures including Terminator 2 (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Cliffhanger (starring Sylvester Stallone).  More recently, Alice coordinated the bank financing of produced pictures including Oscar-nominated 3:10 to Yuma (starring Russell Crowe), The Forbidden Kingdom (with Jackie Chan and Jet Li), The Bank Job, Brothers, A Perfect Getaway, Nine, Spy Next Door, Dear John, Season of the Witch, The Fighter (starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg), Limitless (starring Bradley Cooper), Haywire, The Immortals, Mirror, Mirror (starring Julia Roberts), 21 & Over, Movie 43, Safe Haven and Out of the Furnace.  Alice also managed two $100 million revolving film production credit facilities with two separate syndicates of banks, which helped finance such movies as Basic Instinct (starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone) and Total Recall (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone).

Lou Aronica

Lou Aronica (he/him) started the Spectra imprint at Bantam when he was 27 years old. His first acquisition for Bantam Spectra, David Brin’s Startide Rising, won a Hugo and a Nebula award. Bantam Spectra went on to publish New York Times bestsellers for Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Raymond Feist, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Neil Gaiman.During this phase of his career, Aronica acquired five consecutive winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards.

His Full Spectrum anthology series ran 5 volumes. Full Spectrum 4, co-edited with Amy Stout and Betsy Mitchell, won the 1994 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. He also started the Star Wars book publishing program. As Mass Market Publisher for Bantam, he launched the Crime Line mystery imprint and worked with bestselling authors Elizabeth George, Robert Crais, and Diane Mott Davidson. After leaving Bantam in 1994, he became Publisher of the Berkley Publishing Group, where he started two imprints, Boulevard and Signature. During this time, he acquired and edited futuristic mysteries by J.D. Robb (a penname of author Nora Roberts).

Graham Bradstreet

Graham Bradstreet (he/him) qualified as a chartered accountant and began his career in the motion picture industry as a shareholder and Finance Director in the Working Title Group of Companies (“Working Title”) in 1986. Over the following years Working Title became the U.K.’s pre-eminent motion picture production company and was subsequently sold to PolyGram in 1993, by which time it had produced some 15 movies and seven television programs (see below). Whilst at Working Title, Bradstreet became adept at laying off risk with the use of tax advantageous legislation, subsidies, grants, rebates, co-production treaties and other “soft” monies.

Following the sale of his shareholding to PolyGram, Graham acted as a consultant to various companies including Chrysalis, Katsalas Films, Miramax, Parallel Pictures, and Pukka Films.

In 1996, having developed the concept of insurance-backed financing, he closed a five-picture deal with Phoenix Pictures. Bradstreet then formed ICE Media (“ICE”) to concentrate on the risk management of insurance-backed film financing. ICE raised in excess of $1Bn of insurance backed finance, contributing to budgets in excess of $3Bn covering approximately 100 movies (see below) including Truman Show, Face/Off, Runaway Bride and Sleepy Hollow.

End users included Paramount, MGM/UA, Orion, Phoenix Pictures, Artisan, LionsGate, J&M Entertainment, IAC, Mandalay and Seven Arts. Banks included Chase Manhattan (now JPMorgan), Société Generalé, Imperial (now CoMerica), Silicon Valley Bank, Westdeutche Landesbank and De Nationale Investeringsbank NU.

Such innovative structures have established Graham as one of the leading motion picture financiers in the world, whether for independent or studio movies. He has since advised various entertainment companies including Bed & Breakfast, Belgrave Promotions Limited (Ireland), Consolidated Pictures Group, Inc., Crannog Films Limited (Ireland), Ego Aegis Limited (U.K.), Fonu2, Inc., Hercules Entertainment, ManifeStar, LLC, (Puerto Rico), Mario BH, Medient, Inc., Monkey Wrench Films, Montage Media, Inc., Mr. Pictures Limited (U.K.), Parallel Pictures Limited (U.K.), Red Octopus, Inc., Seviinth Wave, Inc., Silencer, LLC, (Puerto Rico), TMI, Inc., Ukimwi Road Limited (U.K.), and Ulti-Media Group, Inc.

Of the 130 movies funded by Graham, 31 were major studio releases generating an estimated $3.32Bn in Box Office. 196 award nominations have been garnered (including 14 Academy Award nominations), winning 94 of them (including one Academy Award).

Ben Noble

Ben Noble (he/him) is a well-known and respected Atlanta-based businessman whose interests include real estate, investment, international trade, and entertainment, while remaining firmly immersed in the oil and gas industry.

He is chairman of Noble Holdings, a management, investment, and consulting firm, and is currently on the board of five additional companies along with his involvement in civic and philanthropic organizations.

Ben’s former partners have included the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Ringo Starr of Beatles’ fame. The trio, along with John Portman, opened The London Brasserie in Atlanta and threw an opening night party that rivaled the famed world premiere of Gone with the Wind, which also took place in Atlanta. He served as a board director for American Artists Film Corporation for a number of years. He has founded three banks, two of which became regional in scope and were acquired by national banks. The third remains fiscally strong.

Ben is a founding director of Hank Aaron Enterprises as well as one of the original owners of Lenox Square, the first regional shopping center in the world, which has had a major impact on Atlanta, especially the Buckhead financial district.

Among Ben’s accomplishments is a two-term Presidential appointment as a private sector advisor to the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Ronald Reagan and serving on the President’s transition team. This Mensa Society member continues to enjoy flying, scuba diving, boating, skiing, and disappearing to the Caribbean.

Irtaza Barlas

Irtaza Barlas (he/him) brings more than 20 years of diverse technology and product development experience to Gramarye. He is currently the Director of Software Engineering of a very successful healthcare IT company in Georgia. He was also the Program Manager at Impact Technologies, where he led the research and development efforts associated with advanced computing, image analysis, and data mining systems for the industry and the US Department of Defense.

Irtaza was the architect and Principle Investigator on a multi-year research program on “Self-Aware Processing Systems” for DARPA. Irtaza worked with Raytheon and Georgia Tech to develop technologies for monitoring and real-time reconfiguration. His other DoD research programs include datamining and visualization for US Navy, distributed monitoring of Virginia Class Submarine Combat Systems, and Multi-agent Distributed Data Fusion for Unmanned Surface Vehicles for Office of Naval Research. Impact Technologies was acquired in 2011 by United Technologies’ Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation—and is now a Sikorsky Innovations company.

Don Dudenhoeffer

Don Dudenhoeffer’s (he/him) professional experience has been an extensive voyage into the world of advanced interactive media. He’s spent most of his career on the front lines of the new media space working with emerging technologies in Interactive TV, mobile devices, video distribution, and e-commerce applications. In Don’s 20 years of creative design and implementation, his work has focused on creating forward thinking applications that aid large media companies in their pursuit of the future of media often targeting multi-screen experiences.

Don led the design team that was awarded the first ever Emmy in Interactive Television for the creation of an Interactive TV application enhancing the HBO Band of Brothers experience. He also led the effort to design and build CNN’s Pipeline and the Washington Redskins experiences for Media Center and Intel’s Viiv initiative. Don has participated in the incubation, testing and launch of many new interactive products ranging from a wireless traffic guidance system, desktop applications (TWC Desktop Weather), browser plug-ins, widgets, and new forms of digital video collection, encoding, and distribution.

Arthur Stepanyan

In a professional career that has spanned more than 35 years, Arthur Stepanyan (he/him) has been fortunate to meet, work with, and learn from captains of industry and government leaders from all over the world. Through these interactions, Arthur became intimately familiar with such diverse industry verticals as aerospace, automotive, metallurgy, oil and gas exploration and production, microelectronics, tele-communications, and nuclear energy — all seen through essential principles of business, finance, and law.

As an international business consultant, Arthur was involved in Chevron’s mega-JV in Kazakhstan, in Kaiser Aluminum technology transfer projects, in International Launch System’s commercial satellite launches, and in US DOE’s IPP/NCI programs.

Candice Alger

Prior to selling Giant Studios’ technology to James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment in 2015, Candice Alger (she/her) served as CEO and Executive Producer of the leading motion capture and virtual production company from its inception in 2000, supporting such films including but not limited to Avatar, The Lord of the Ring Trilogy, Tintin, The Polar Express, Happy Feet, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Real Steel, Warcraft, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk. Her video Game credits include Halo 4&5, Call of Duty, and Devil May Cry. The development team was recognized by the Academy in 2012 with a Technical Achievement Award for its impact on the film making process.

Following the sale of the technology, Candice wound down the company and then took a position with Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) at Georgia State University to help design and equip their 27,000 square foot media lab. The facility features state of the art technologies that empower students to tell their stories across multiple platforms. The belief is that if they can do that by leveraging immersive technologies, they will find jobs in any sector as the world is becoming more digital every day. She is also a Professor of Practice and Supervising Producer of the virtual production studios.

Candice was recognized by Women in Technology as the very first Woman of the Year in the Arts award in 2020. Recipients are recognized for their accomplishments as visionaries, leaders in business, and women who make a difference in their communities.

Prior to helming Giant Studios, Candice was an Executive Vice President at Crawford Communications Inc., where she was instrumental in guiding the expansion of a thirty-five-person post-production facility into one of the most widely recognized telecommunications companies in the United States, with more than 350 employees when she left in 1999. Her initial role with the company was as manager of its start-up division Crawford Satellite Services, which she developed into one of the first international teleports to offer fully automated satellite network original services for cable television. During her tenure the teleport provide origination services for over twenty-five full time cable networks throughout North America, and Latin America.

Earlier in her career, she worked in Public Relations for the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Flames.

William H. Foley

Bill Foley (he/him) is the President of Foley Design Associates. His background includes experience in business, construction, and architecture, including ownership in three architecture firms and one construction firm. Bill has had direct interaction on a variety of project types from planning to the construction phase of the project. A diverse background of project types includes corporate headquarters, office and warehouse facilities, resort facilities, country club, retail centers, recreation facilities, elderly housing, continuing care retirement centers, schools, healthcare, multi-family housing, and libraries.

Bill has been the lead architect and designer of Trilith Studios (formerly Pinewood Atlanta Studios), Founders Studios, and many other industry-leading motion picture and television production facilities.

Bill’s past architectural experience includes work with Bull and Kenney Architects in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as a planner and designer, the Atlanta office of Christian/Foley Architects as partner-incharge, and Thompson Hancock Witte & Associates as Executive Vice President.

David Godfrey

David Godfrey (he/him) has more than 30 years’ experience across screen-based media, including a well-balanced combination of technical, operational, executive managerial, and consultancy skills and an ability to work globally across any culture, individually or with teams of any size.

He has a solid executive background in operational management (Director of UK Operations for Pinewood and Shepperton Studios) along with proven high-level delivery of technical media consultancy (Director of International Operations for The Pinewood Group) working extensively across both domestic and international media arenas to successfully deliver my client’s vision and objectives from concept to completion.

Territories worked for facility build and feasibility include: USA, Canada, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, India, Chile, Colombia, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, France, Mauritius, Romania, South Africa, Ireland and UK.

In addition to himself, David brings international experts in all media disciplines to Gramarye’s projects, providing us with a genuine dream team.

Houston Howard

There’s story and then there’s Super Story. If you just want a story, go to McKee. If you want your story to survive in an age of distraction and become bigger than you’ve ever imagined, you need a Super Story. That’s where Houston Howard (he/him) comes in.

As the Chief Storyteller and Co-Founder of One 3 Creative, Houston has been a recognized thought leader in the entertainment and branding communities because of his unique and proprietary transmedia approach to story. Advising entities such as Mattel, Disney Imagineering, Reliance Media Works, West Coast Customs, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Harper Collins Publishing, as well as designing a number of transmedia-focused projects for Fox, the CW, TNT, Slinky and the writers of Toy Story, Houston has an impressive amount of experience designing projects that are primed for the 21st Century.

When he’s not outlining a new slate of transmedia design books, setting up international co-productions for current transmedia projects or leading a wildly diverse creative team, Houston is educating professionals on how to adapt to an ever-changing entertainment landscape. This has included leading workshops for the Producers Guild of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, Act One, Storyworld USA, The Greater Los Angeles Writers Conference and the Swedish Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, Houston led a series of international transmedia masterclasses across both Brazil and Africa throughout 2016.

His latest book, Make Your Story Really Stinkin’ Big: How to Go From Concept to Franchise and Make Your Story Last For Generations, has been a go-to manual for creative professionals on how to leverage a variety of media platforms, maximizes revenue potential and engages audiences in new and innovative ways.

Learn more about how Houston builds projects that exist at the intersection of branding and entertainment at http://superstory.works/.

CREATIVE SPECIALTIES: Creating dynamic new intellectual properties; transmedia storytelling, implementation architecture, development and production; intellectual property incubation and development; creating “blockbuster” worlds (fictional world development); feature film screenwriting; graphic design.

LEGAL SPECIALTIES: Transactional/Contract Administration, Negotiations, Trial Practice.

Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden (he/him) is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of Snowblind, Ararat, The Boys are Back Intown, Tin Men, Of Saints and Shadows, and dozens of other novels. He has also written books for teens, including the thriller series Body of Evidence, honored by the New York Public Library and chosen as one of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Readers. With Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, he co-created two fan favorite comic book series — Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and the New York Times bestselling Baltimore. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of multiple novels, as well as comic book miniseries such as Talent and The Sisterhood, both currently in development as feature films. With Amber Benson, Christopher co-created the BBC’s online animated series Ghosts of Albion and co-wrote the book series of the same name.

Christopher has also written short stories, video games, dozens of other comic books and graphic novels, a BBC radio play, and screenplays. He has adapted his own work for Fox, New Regency, Constantin Films, and the CW, and is one of the writers of the 2019 film reboot of Hellboy. He is also an editor, anthologist, lecturer, and keynote speaker who has appeared at conferences, schools, and libraries from Dallas to London to Transylvania (really).

The author is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of the X-Men, Alien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy, and Daredevil, among others. He collaborated with director Guillermo del Toro on the book Blackwood’s Guide to Dangerous Fairies.

Chris began his career as Licensing Manager for the parent company of Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Back Stage, and many other magazines. In that capacity, he worked with the producers of the first two years of the Billboard Music Awards, as well as with the producers of American Top 40 radio, and numerous other projects.

Chris was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world.

Jarrett Golding

Jarrett Golding (he/him) is an educator, screenwriter, and story development professional with years of diverse entertainment industry experience. Jarrett earned his MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and has written three produced and distributed feature films, and worked on award-winning television series.

Previous writing credits include three produced and distributed feature films. His musical screwball comedy Mac & Devin Go to High School, starring hip-hop superstars Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, is distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment; indie rom-com Boy Toy, starring Mircea Monroe and Morgan Fairchild, is distributed by Lionsgate; and family film Holiday Heist, starring Lacey Chabert and Vivica A. Fox, airs each holiday season on ION Network. Jarrett worked in the writers’ rooms of acclaimed showrunners, including Michael Schur’s Parks and Recreation on NBC as well as Chuck Lorre’s (tragically doomed) HBO miniseries adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities (it was going to be so good!). Jarrett was also a founding Creative Executive at Amazon Studios overseeing development in Comedy/Kids & Family.

Utilizing his interdisciplinary entertainment industry experience, Jarrett has served as a professor and lecturer at Pepperdine University, Los Angeles Film School, University of Southern California, UC Santa Barbara, and CSU Northridge. As an educator, Jarrett’s multimodal pedagogy is grounded in character-driven storytelling principles and draws upon the diverse lived experiences of his students.

Jarrett crafts creative and strategic solutions for an ever-evolving media landscape. Having cultivated an expertise in transmedia methodology, he specializes in intellectual property incubation and development, expanding story across platforms with an eye for dynamic contemporary content, creative innovation, and commercial success. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and four children, two of which are human boys, the other two are dogs.

James A. Moore

James A. Moore (he/him) is the award winning author of over forty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy, and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley), and his most recent novels, Seven Forges, The Blasted Lands, City of Wonders, The Silent Army, and The Last Sacrifice (Book One in the Tides of War series) and A Hell Within, co-authored with Charles R. Rutledge. He currently lives in Massachusetts.

He regularly leads workshops and seminars for writers on topics ranging from story construction, character development, and world building to contract negotiation and working with agents and publishers.

Chris Soth

Writer/Director-Producer Chris Soth (he/him) has authored more than 40 screenplays and is a frequent speaker on the topics of story structure and independent filmmaking, teaching screenwriters around the world how to write great screenplays AND pitch them for success.

Chris is the writer of Firestorm, released by 20th Century Fox, and the independent hit Outrage: Born in Terror. He is currently developing a slate of independent films, the first of which, Don’t Fall Asleep, has just received distribution. His directorial debut, SafeWord, is presently in post-production.

Chris has taught at USC and UCLA, and currently guides screenwriters from concept to FADE OUT using the “Mini-Movie Method” in his mentorship program at YourScreenplayMentor.com. His ebook Million-Dollar Screenwriting: The Mini-Movie Method and DVD SOLD! How I Set Up Three Pitches in Hollywood, among other great screenwriting resources, are available at MillionDollarScreenwriting.com.

Gramarye Media was one of the very few companies lucky enough to participate in Georgia Tech’s Flashpoint, one of the world’s most successful and prestigious business accelerators.

Flashpoint works closely with founders to enable them to think clearly about their businesses, using rigorous processes to enable reliable innovation. It is unique in implementing startup engineering, a business creation and innovation process developed by Dr. Merrick Furst at Georgia Tech. Its companies have attracted more than $150 million in commitments from angels and investors and have a market cap of over $800 million.

Startup Engineering is a program and framework for finding genuine unmet demand and building scalable companies to satisfy it.

Startup engineers take a “problem first” approach to identify inadequately addressed pain in their customer’s personal or professional lives. They generate theories about customer improvement goals and the constraints that prevent existing solutions from meeting them. They work toward actionable truth by testing to disconfirm their theories, modifying them, and retesting. They prioritize and gauge progress through a framework of understanding, bounding, and reducing the risks that all early stage companies face.

Gramarye Media also partners with the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) at Georgia State University to apply innovative technology to reduce the cost of film and television productions.

The CMII, arguably the single most advanced virtual production facility on the planet, features Virtual production to support live performances driving 3D characters in virtual worlds, layering virtual characters and objects over real world environments, an augmented Reality CAVE Lab, a walking VR Lab, best-in-Class Editing, Color-Correction, and Post-Production Suites, “Lagless” Music and Dialog Recording, and more.

Our sister company, ConcentraQ, helps power Gramarye’s powerful social media and tracking capability. ConcentraQ is a cloud-based software platform that allows marketing and brand management teams to quickly design and launch highly personalized campaigns to inspire, incent, and empower consumers to become champions for their brand.

In short, ConcentraQ maximizes social endorsement and brand visibility, beyond what can be achieved through traditional marketing channels. With ConcentraQ, marketers can guide the conversation and identify (and potentially reward) their brand’s most significant individual influencers. The result? Faster, more agile promotional campaigns leading to:

• Deeper brand affinity, stronger bonds with current and potential customers
• More compelling personal, unpaid endorsements and buzz
• Significantly increased brand visibility
• More precisely-targeted promotion budgets and properly-attributed ROI

ConcentraQ enables real visibility into social influence and endorsement activities from the ground up — starting at the individual consumer level. It provides tools for brand marketers that seamlessly integrate into promotions, giving prospects and customers the opportunity to easily endorse brands/products within in their social spaces.

The Story Plant was founded in 2008 by two long-term industry professionals, Lou Aronica and Peter Miller. From the start, the company has been dedicated to publishing quality fiction and to developing authors. Though we’re always trying to improve, we feel that we’ve delivered on both. Our books regularly receive rave reviews (click on any of our titles to check for yourself) and since our launch, nearly a third of our novels have appeared in the top 100 of one major bestseller list or another – and often several at once.

In 2013, The Story Plant was acquired by Studio Digital CT, LLC, a limited liability company headed by Lou Aronica. With this, Mitchell Maxwell came on board to add his unparalleled blend of creativity, passion, and business acumen.

The Story Plant has an absolute dedication to its authors. Both Aronica and Maxwell are novelists as well, and they understand the desires, needs, and insecurities of writers at the most personal level. We want The Story Plant to be a good home for those who write for us, and we want it to be a place where readers can be assured that everyone involved in bringing these books to them cares deeply about what they’re doing.